Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

Posted on June 4, 2010 - by Mary

My Baby is All Grown Up!

Wow has this past week ever been eventful! Let’s see, my husband’s parents arrived last week on Wednesday and had dinner with Jeff. I was at youth group and got home just in time to meet them at the door as they were heading over to their motel.

Thursday, we went to Mackinaw City and spent much of the day just walking around. It was very nice out and we got a surprise while we were there. Karlie, my baby who is now 18, was on her Senior trip with some of her classmates and stopped through MC on their way home. It was pretty cool being able to see her there instead of having to wait until later. She did decide to travel the rest of the way home with her classmates and then her boyfriend dropped her off after school. They wanted to spend some time together…teenagers! Ha.

Thursday, my “God daughter” Briana arrived, too. She is staying with us until after the Big Ticket, so pretty much the whole month of June

Friday was spent shopping for Karlie’s graduation dress. After watching Karlie try on several outfits at various stores, we finally found a store with a lot of things she liked. Aleene was now able to determine Karlie’s style and picked out a couple of things she actually liked and tried on. We did end up finding 2 dresses there and I told her to get them both. She doesn’t have very many dresses in her wardrobe and she could use one for her open house, which is this Saturday. When we were checking out, they ask for your name because they keep record of how often you shop there and stuff. When Karlie told the store associate her name, he turned around and pulled her application for employment out of the stack and asked if she wanted an interview! How cool is that? She had the interview yesterday and is awaiting a call.

Speaking of job interviews, Karlie had one at Subway and was hired. She began her first day of work at her first “real” job (other than babysitting) on Monday. She also had to work a few hours on her birthday, but its good for her.

Jeff and Tom went to the tire place to price out new tires for the truck and found a good deal at the dealership in Boyne City. They were put on the truck this morning after Jeff got off work and his final night of midnights for this round.

Saturday was her graduation. I’m surprised at how well I did NOT crying. I’m usually a big cry-er, but I held it together really well. There were a couple of moments when I started to tear up, but I managed to pull myself together, which is unusual for me. I’ve noticed I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Hmmmm? Makes me wonder what has changed?

After the ceremony, we went to Pizza Hut with the family, most of it anyway. Kaleb had to work and Brandon had a birthday party to go to for one of their friend’s two year old’s. After Pizza Hut, we went around and walked in the park, down by the waterfront in Petoskey. The boys (my grandsons) loved it! They had a blast.

Sunday was church and Jeff’s parents joined us there. Then Jeff had to come home and sleep because he started midnights Sunday night. We had lunch at and then his parents went back to the motel and I think we all took a nap. They came back later, after supper, and visited for a couple of hours and said their goodbyes, as they were leaving the next morning before 8 am.

Monday was Memorial Day and I was able to get my hair done by the amazing Lora. Then Trisha and I went shopping for Karlie’s open house. I got all the decorations at the dollar store! And ones she actually likes. Have you gotten the idea that Karlie is very picky? Yeah, uhhum!

Monday night we cooked out over at Trisha and Ben’s and had a bonfire and made smores. It was a great Memorial Weekend.

Tuesday, I got some work done during the day, and then we celebrated Karlie’s 18th birthday. We went to Trisha’s and made Karlie’s favorite meal, stroganoff and garlic bread. I also made brownies with Reese’s peanut butter chips in them and we had ice cream to go with the brownies. We played games and had a fun time.

Wednesday was youth group day again, but this time Briana came with me. We had our usual two meetings, lunch at Bamboo Palace with Pastor James and my amazing friend Angel and then James took Briana and I on a field trip. Haha. He took us to his house and showed us his very green lawn. We watched him try to kill a mole with a pitchfork, tried to name everything that was growing in their garden, tried to figure out why there were dry spots right by each sprinkler, talked about what would be a good way to rearrange the trees that line the driveway, got hairy shorts from Bailey, his golden retriever, went to the house across the street where his cousin was tearing out the carpeting, came back to the office for a bit, then went back to Biggby while he had a meeting and Bri and I sat and chit-chatted. How’s that for a long day? It was fun though! I really enjoyed it.

Wednesday night was our usual youth group and then aftewards we went to Applebee’s for half off appetizers and then I drove to Vanderbilt to take one girl home and then across to Camp Ten to take another one home. It was a long ride, but not too bad actually.

I have most of the pictures posted on facebook and it’s getting late now, so I don’t feel like uploading them here. For Karlie’s graduation pics, click here and for our Mackinaw City pics, click here. There are also more graduation pics in  the photos added by others as well.

Okay, this is a really long post. Hope you enjoyed my recap of the week How was yours? Do you have any graduates this year?

Posted on May 24, 2010 - by Mary

Graduation is Upon Us-Where to get Graduation Gifts

My baby is graduating this year. It’s kind of weird when your last child graduates from high school. Sadness hasn’t hit me yet, but probably will when she walks across the stage to receive her diploma. Or no, I know when it will definitely hit. She attends a small charter school which focuses on the performing arts so each year at graduation they have a slideshow of all the Graduates throughout the years. Yep that’s when it will hit…I know it. My oldest daughter graduated from this school and that darn slideshow does it every time.

We have the open house all planned out, now we just need to purchase the decorations and cake. She is going to attend cosmetology school in the fall and wants beauty school decorations for her open house. I’ve done some looking online for them, but haven’t been successful at finding them yet. I am planning on going to the dollar store here in a couple of day. I’m looking for cute little combs, scissors, curlers, etc. for center pieces and whatever else I can find that would represent cosmetology well. It will be fun and cute, I think.

Being in the youth ministry, we also give the graduates at our church a little gift in honor of their achievement. We usually try to find a devotional or prayer book. I’ve found some in the past at ChristianBook.com at very reasonable prices as well as on Amazon. This year we got our graduates the Prayer of Solomon. It’s a really good prayer journal and the teens seemed to like it and found it easy to read and follow. This is the 2nd year in a row that we’re giving it to them.

ChristianBook.com has some really nice personalized graduation gifts, as well as gifts for all other occasions, like Weddings and Father’s Day. I use them often and have always gotten great service and have never had to return anything. Their prices are also very reasonable.

Where do you shop for graduation and other gifts?

Posted on May 15, 2010 - by Mary

Final Days of High School

As I sit here and write this, Karlie is attending her Senior Prom. That’s right, my baby is attending her Senior Prom. You know it all hasn’t hit me really that my baby, my last child, is graduating high school in just a few days. We’ve attended her last high school play and her last dance revue so far and still have her last choir concert and of course graduation to go. It did start to hit the other night, the first night of her dance revue. But then I remembered that she still had Friday night dance revue, choir concert, prom and graduation to go, so I was able to overcome becoming emotional at that point. You can see her dance revue and other videos here.

Today was a huge day, getting ready for prom and all. In my last post I told about how she won this prom dress contest from Kymaro. What I didn’t know when I wrote that post was all the amazing stuff she won in addition to her prom dress! Oh my goodness!!!

First of all she was able to pick out any dress she wanted. And she chose this super cute, princess style dress.

She also got to pick out any shoes she wanted and the jewelry. In addition to all that, the wonderful people at Kymaro scheduled her a head to toe makeover at the Spa at the Inn at Bay Harbor; a very upscale salon and spa. She got a manicure, pedicure, hair cut, color and style and a complete facial. We spent all day at the spa…I wish I would have had the money to get myself made over while we were there….oh well. It was her day and she had fun getting pampered. In addition to all that, the prom tickets were paid for, as well as a limo ride to and from prom. They actually got an SUV because there were no limo’s available for today. But, at least they got chaperoned in a nice vehicle!

Another huge surprise came in the mail. She got a box full of beauty and body products from Kymaro; makeup, body shapers, nail polish, teeth whitening from supersmile, Ted Gibson hair products, a sunless tanning system and more! It was like Christmas!

OMGosh!!! She just texted me and told me she won Prom Queen!!! Oh I’m so proud of her!!! I can’t wait to see pictures of her in her crown! Her boyfriend got pictures of her. Awe, I’m so happy for her!

Anyway, it’s been a good Senior year for her. It will be weird not having a child in school…well regular school anyway. Karlie will be attending cosmetology in the fall and then off to bible college probably after that, for music/worship.What will I do when all 4 of m kids are grown up??? Oh, I know!!! Enjoy watching the grandkids grow up!

Posted on April 4, 2010 - by Mary

God works through our Circumstances

Our entire church has been studying the Experiencing God bible study for the past 6 or 7 weeks. It’s a twelve week study and every week it gets better and better. I’ve already seen God move in our lives in many ways and I’m learning how see where God is working and then go there, instead of me making my own plan and asking God to bless it. It’s amazing. God is amazing.

This week I’ve been learning about how God works through our circumstances. And boy do we have some circumstances! Just the other night, Thursday I think it was, Karlie, my 17 year old was on her way home from Petoskey with one of her friends, who is about 4 or 5 months pregnant. As they rounded a curve the car in front of them suddenly came to a skreetching halt because of an accident that just happened, and so did Karlie and her friend. As soon as they stopped, Karlie looked in her rearview mirror only to see the vehicle behind her racing toward them, smashing into them. Karlie and her friend were okay, Praise God, but the van is not. We’re pretty certain the frame is bent because the two sliding side doors are sprung open at the top. The tow truck that came to tow the vehicle that hit them, used their wench to pull the side panel away from the tire so we could drive it home, but the bumper is dragging, not to mention most of it’s missing, and the backend is smashed in.

We still owe about $4000 on it and if they total it we will be lucky to get that amount out of it. When we hit the deer a couple of months ago, the body shop estimated it’s worth at about that amount or somewhere around there. If they do total it out, we may or may not have enough to pay it off, but we definitely won’t have enough money to buy another vehicle. We’ve learned through Crown Financial that we’re supposed to save enough cash to buy a vehicle outright, but we haven’t been able to do that either. We have to have 2 cars with Jeff working in Gaylord, and Karlie still in school. And I need a vehicle on Wednesday’s but we can manage to work around that with two cars….but not one.

Our truck is out of commission right now due to a blown tire, and we haven’t had the cash to buy new tires for it yet. It also needs frontend work, not to mention the body work, but that’s not a necessity to get it on the road. Our car runs pretty good but the hood needs a new latch. It’s pretty ghetto looking but like I said, it runs, so that’s what we’re using now to get around. Thank God Karlie is on spring break right now and Jeff is on vacation this week to give us time to work something out…for God to work something out.

So, I guess I’m writing this so you can pray for us. I’m praying for a financial miracle. I know God will provide all our needs, so I’m not worried. I definitely want to see how God is going to work through this! It’s going to be exciting and I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Posted on January 25, 2010 - by Mary

Welcome Remmy Rozland

As I’m writing this, I’m at the hospital hanging out with my new grand daughter, Remmy Rozland. She was born yesterday, January 24, 2010 at 8:39pm. She weighs 6lbs, 4 oz and is 18 inches long. She has a full head of dark, fuzzy hair and the cutest little nose I’ve ever seen. She was delivered c-section because she was breech. We weren’t expecting her until Feb. 1, but she had other ideas. Her mom started having mild contractions during church yesterday, so she called the doctor and after taking a hot bath with no reprieve, we decided to head to the hospital just to check things out, especially since we knew she was breech. Ashley was hooked up to the fetal monitor and it showed she was definitely having contractions, though they weren’t really hurting her too much. When they checked her cervix they discovered she was dilated to 3 centimeters and 80% effaced, so the doctor decided to go ahead and take her c-section. Here are some pictures of our beautiful new addition to the family.

Posted on December 14, 2009 - by Mary

It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas!

Are you enjoying the Christmas season this year? If not, I hope you take some time to sit back and think about the reason for the season, the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; spend some time to spend with the ones you love; decorate your home and bake some Christmas cookies to give to friends and family; go drive around your neighborhood and look at Christmas lights; go Christmas caroling; build a snowman; or whatever you can to get in the Christmas spirit.

Well now that I’ve given my advice to help you get in the Spirit of Christmas, my whole point of this post was to let you know what we’ve been doing so far. This is the first year in a very long time that I’ve actually felt like we’ve done more “Christmassy” things than just decorate, bake, shop and wrap presents.

Last weekend, we went to the Holiday Open House in Petoskey and had a blast. We walked around downtown in the snow, listened to the Petoskey Steel drum band play, drank some hot chocolate, at the best pumpkin pie I’ve ever had and took some photos.

Then this past Friday was our Youth Leadership Christmas Party. It was a ton of fun with good food, Euchre and Silly Santas! 

Saturday was my hubby’s birthday, so we went to my oldest daughter’s house for dinner and cake and ice cream. But before we had the cake and ice cream, we went to a Benefit Concert for the Otsego Christian School given by Only 9am. Only 9am is a band consisting of 4 siblings…and their family happens to attend our church. The concert was really great and really put me in the Christmas Spirit. Here is a video from the concert and below that are some photos from the weekend. Enjoy!

Posted on December 3, 2009 - by Mary

This Day in 1990

December 3, 1990 looked a lot like today…a fine, light snow falling, gray and Christmas lights beginning to appear on various houses throughout the area. Why do I remember this day so well? Because on this day in 1990 I gave birth to my 3rd child, Kaleb Lionel McNamara….and we have it on video….not the actual birth, but some before and lots after. We actually have a shot out the window before we left for the hospital.

Kaleb was always a late comer…my due date for him was actually November 19. He didn’t arrive for a full two weeks later, and we had to persuade him to come out…I was induced. So, at 6 or so in the morning, we left for the hospital. My doctor tried to get things going by trying to pop my water, but with no luck. She said the lining or whatever was thick and tough and wouldn’t break. Sounds alot like Kaleb!  If I recall correctly, I don’t think they gave me the induction drug until 1:00 in the afternoon or so. I think they were just trying to get me to go into labor naturally, but it just wasn’t going to happen for whatever reason. I think the contractions started pretty quickly after the Pitocyn (sp?) got in my system. At one point the nurse came in and checked my cervix and said I was dilated to 6 and if I felt the urge to push to call the nurse, but it should be for a while yet, since I was only dilated to 6. Well, of course, literally 5 minutes after she left, I got the urge to push. I thought it was weird, but went a head and called the nurse. She came in an checked, and sure enough I was dilated to 10. I went from 6 to 10 in 5 minutes! She got the doctor and he was born at 5:52pm. Purple as could be, which they said was due to my cervix opening so fast. He was my largest baby, weighing in at 8 lbs. 2 oz. All of my other kids were 7 lbs. 3 oz to 7 lbs. 10 oz.

Kaleb has the greatest personality you can imagine. He is funny, as in comedic, yet he also tells it like it is. If he doesn’t like something, oh you’ll hear about it, no holding  back, no beating around the bush.

Some of my favorite memories of Kaleb are:

• His birth…he was the shortest labor of all my kids…thanks Kaleb
• He learned how to ski at like 2 and has been fantastic at it ever since. He was the captain of the ski team at school his senior year. They took 3rd at the State finals that year.
• Kaleb learned to ride a bike at 2 years old, with training wheels, but by 3, they were off.
• He learned to play drums in 5th grade and has been playing ever since.
• Kaleb has great taste in music. He always makes me listen to bands with weird names like Incubus and Umphrey’s McGee…and I always end up liking it….not necessarily the lyrics, but their sound.
• Kaleb struggled in school due to ADHD, but he loves college. Interesting.
• He’s a cutie for sure…here are some photos for you to admire. But, sorry girls, he has a girlfriend!